The estimates are pouring in, but they keep flowing through like water in a sieve, gathering far below so that I can hardly see them anymore. I’m not even really involved in them. I get it all second-hand from Heidi, who is the captain of this ship. She schedules the meetings, she takes the meetings, she gathers the figures, she crunches the numbers, and she makes the decisions. I’m just the sounding board upon which she bounces off all of the information that she takes in and assimilates.
But it feels like we’re making progress.
I look out the side window here and I see the expanse of land that is ours. It doesn’t quite feel like ours right now because it is empty, save for the swing set on the back edge of the parcel. There is barely any snow on it, so I feel like we’ve already arrived at spring, that the ground can be dug up now, the cellar put in, and the rest of the building raised in a day. I feel like tomorrow we could move in.
But that’s just wishful thinking, of course.
The reality is that it is still the beginning of February, that the great thaw I am waiting for is still a ways off, and the cellar, and the house with it. Realistically this might still be a while, even until the walls are up and I can imagine the rest of the house falling into place. Perhaps in the spring I will pitch a tent on the land and oversee the progress, squeezing whatever I can out of the workers until a space has been cleared inside of the edifice for a sleeping bag.
That’s the dream.
We have settled into a sort of routine here, in the meantime. I hide when I can. I am a mannequin when I can’t, my face twisted into a smile that could also be a grimace, but I think it looks more like a smile. I wait my turn at the sink, at the oven, at the washer, and at the dryer like a good soldier. I park where I’m told to park, place my slippers side by side in the closet, and keep my music down. I listen to the alarm clock go off on the other side of the house and I know they’re up, and it’s time to start another day.
This is when I wish I had more friends here to do things with. Perhaps soon Heidi and I will take a night off. Maybe we’ll take a moment to go out and paint the town blue, to eat a meal cooked by someone else, and just take some time to talk. It sounds like heaven, but it probably won’t happen. I know when I’ve been bested. No, I won’t accept that. It will happen. Now, to plan…
Sam
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